


Drops of Jupiter

by meggygurl



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-26 21:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meggygurl/pseuds/meggygurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy wants to know about who came before her in the TARDIS. Takes place between Vincent and the Doctor and The Lodger, so Rory is dead/never existed. But Amy remembers something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drops of Jupiter

There is a room in the TARDIS with a clear ceiling and the floor is nothing but pillows and blankets and cushions. Amy discovers it when she is up wandering around the night after Van Gogh. How was she suppose to sleep after that? Though, if she lets herself think about it very much, she hasn’t been sleeping well for weeks. Maybe months. It’s hard to tell time in the TARDIS. Which, she thinks is kind of funny since it’s a time machine. After they almost started a war with the big lizard people, ever since that, Amy barely sleeps. Her bed feels empty.

Which is weird since it’s the top bunk and it would barely fit another person. Unless they were really skinny.

But more importantly is the Red Carpet room, which is what Amy named it the first time she found it.

“That name is boring, Amelia. I hope you aren’t the one who names your children, you pick the most boring names. Amy, The Red Carpet. Honestly, have you no imagination? That room is clearly more like a giant fort! It’s the greatest pillow fort anyone has ever built. With no roof. Or pillow walls. So not like a pillow fort at all. Forget the pillow fort. Why are we even talking about forts?”

“It’s because it’s all red, Doctor. It’s red and you can see the stars. That’s why it’s the red carpet.” Amy interrupted him, barely phased by his rambling. “Before I became a Kiss-A-Gram, I thought I wanted to be a singer. Me and Mels, we sang together with…” She trailed off for a moment, a confused look coming over her face. “With a cd track playing guitar.”

The Doctor did that thing where his face grew serious and he turned to the console, messing with buttons she was sure did nothing. “Well, Amelia Pond, I’m sure we can get you to a real red carpet. What movie opening do you want? Any movie ever made in the history of time! What about… Harry Potter Eleven?”

Amy shook her head and took the Doctor’s hand, tugging him away from the controls. “Later. Right now I want to look at some real stars with my best boy.” She smiled brightly at him, leading him up the stairs and down the hallway. They were both strangely silent as they entered the room, something about it made you whisper, even the Doctor. Amy toed off her shoes and dropped down into the pillows, settling in on her back as she looked up at the clear ceiling. Through it, you could see thousands, millions even, stars. She could feel the Doctor settle into the pillows next to her and without a word, they both reached for the other’s hand at the same time, meeting in the middle and holding tight.

Time passed. Seconds maybe, minutes, or it could have been days. Amy wondered if days even existed when the were nowhere near Earth and the sun. How did that work? Time keeping when there was nothing to rotate around the sun.

“Tell me about some of the girls who came before me?” Amy asked suddenly as she studied the sky above her. “Not all of them, just a few. Maybe the handful right before me.”

She could feel the Doctor tense. “I don’t like living in my own past. It’s the past, there’s no need to revisit it.”

“Wasn’t much to tell, was it? I mean, they looked like they might all just be pretty faces. Pity. No wonder they’re all gone.”

The Doctor shot up and he was suddenly standing and pacing. “Not much to tell! Don’t you dare! You-you have no idea how many times those girls saved your life! Saved the Earth. Saved other worlds! You ever meet an ood, you ask it about Doctor Donna! See if the ood think she was just a pretty face! They have tribute songs about her. She saved their entire race from slavery!” His hands were going wild and he aggressively pushed his long hair out of his eyes. “The planets in the sky, the ones you for some reason slept through or whatever! She saved the entire planet! She saved all the planets! She was the single most important person to be alive! Plus! She was a ging like you!”

Amy bit her bottom lip hard to keep from smiling. Oh, the Doctor. He was such a bloke. He thought he was this big clever alien that could out think everyone in the room, but here he was, playing right into her hands. “Oy, alright. So us gingers are clever. What about the blondes though? You know they’re a little airheaded.”

It was like a lightning bolt struck the Doctor and he was even more hyper and mad than usual. “Airheaded? Airheaded. Let me tell you, li’le girl, I know a blonde who was the most clever human to ever grace that ape infested planet. She did something Einstein, Hawkings, and you Miss Pond, couldn’t do: she built part of a TARDIS! That’s right! Without my help at all! She built a time machine and walked from a parallel universe just to find me! Just because she could! Because she was that brilliant, that strong, that bloody stubborn!”

Dropping down to his knees in front of Amy, he poked his finger against her chest. “You will speak with respect about the people who came before you, Pond. You speak with respect for those people, they were my friends. My family. My-”

“Who did you love?” Amy whispered, her eyes wide as she stared into his. “Which one stole your heart, Doctor?” She sat up, her face inches from his. Her hand reached out past him and she tugged a blanket a little away from the floor. “Was it Rose?”

The Doctor’s face grew pale and he looked down to where her hand was. There, on the floor below the pillows and blankets, in marker, ‘Rose Tyler’ written in her loopy handwriting.

“Her name is all over this ship, didn’t you know?” Amy pointed out. “She wrote it in two of the bathrooms, and I’ve found it in at least six other rooms. It’s even in the swimming pool, in a corner. Seems like she never wanted to be forgotten.”

“I never forget anyone.” The Doctor whispered, sighing as he leaned forward and pressed his forehead against hers. “Rose Tyler was different than the rest though… I didn’t mean for it to happen, but she was different. I had to let her go though, a thing happened, you know how things happen, and she was trapped. She had to stay trapped. The first time. The second time, when I brought her back there… I didn’t have to. I could have kept her with me, it wouldn’t have mattered for any paradox.” His hands were gripping Amy’s arms tightly, almost on the verge of hurting. “It was safe, but then you are never safe with me. And I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t keep her with me forever and watch her grow old and die before my eyes. If this life didn’t take her from me, age would.” His breath was coming in shallow gasps. Amy reached up and cupped his cheeks, stroking his skin with her fingers. Tears were streaming down her own face and she wasn’t sure why, but this was so sad. It was all so sad.

“But she gets something I will never get with her, she gets to grow old and die with me.”

Amy didn’t understand half of what he was talking about, honestly. But she understood he lost someone he loved and she knew how that felt.

How did she understand how that felt? She’s never been in love before. She’d dated boys when she was younger… and she was a Kiss-A-Gram for a while. Had she been in love? She didn’t know, but she felt like she’d lost love before and it just made her cry all the harder.

Her life made no sense.

She wasn’t sure when her and the Doctor moved to laying down, nor when he took her into his arms, holding her tightly against him. He wasn’t making crying sounds, but she felt like the top of her head was a little damp and a larger and larger wet spot was appearing on his tweed from her tears.

“I’m sorry I called your friends daft.” Amy whispered sometime later when they both seemed to still. “I just- didn’t understand why you never mention any of them. It’s like they never happened.”

“Remembering hurts too much, Amy.” The Doctor whispered back. “I take them out when I need them, like everyone else from my past. But if I think of them all the time, it feels like I have dozens of wet blankets on me, pulling me down and I can’t breathe or move. So I have to free myself of them, Amy. It’s all I can do.”

Pulling back some so she could look in his face, Amy’s eyes still damp with tears, she whispered, “Will I be that one day? Just another wet blanket you stow away to mold alone in the bottom of your memories?”

There was that pause, the one that the Doctor takes when you know he’s about to stop talking about whatever it is you’re talking about. His serious conversation switch has turned and you’ve lost any progress you’ve made. “Oh Amelia, you’re something else entirely.” The Doctor grinned, and kissed her forehead before he carefully pulled away, standing up and fixing his clothes. “Now! Very exciting day tomorrow! You should go get some sleep, Pond! Need to recharge those skirts and legs for more running!” Straightening his bowtie, he did a turn flourishing out of the room.

Amy watched him with a sigh, falling back in the pillows. She looked up at the stars, a single tear sliding down her cheek. “I wonder if anyone has ever loved me like that.”

It was the question that kept her up the whole night, which led to her discovering a room that contained a horse.


End file.
